Antonio drew back with the excuse that a frightful dream had scared and worried him. He could not fall asleep again; his senses were in such a tumult. Ere long he again plainly heard Beresynth's croaking voice; and Pietro said with a full clear tone: "Have done; thou seest he is armed and warned; he will not trust himself to sleep again."
"We must overpower him then;" screamed the little one: "now that he has recognized us, we are quite undone every way. The pious slave will go and give us up to the inquisition tomorrow; and the pious rabble will then be at hand in a trice with their faggots and flames."
Through the chink in the door he perceived the two magicians. He again rusht in with his sword drawn, and again found two decrepit old men lying on the ground and whining their prayers. Enraged at the cheating forms, he seized them in his arms and wrestled violently with them; they defended themselves desperately; it was now Pietro, now the hermit, one moment the imp Beresynth, the next a crippled old monk.
After much screaming and raving, cursing and wailing, he at last succeeded in thrusting them out of the cell, which he then carefully fastened. He now heard a whining without and entreaties and groans, mixt up with the whispering of many voices, and with songs and yells; afterward rain and wind seemed to be stirring, and a storm afar off rolled athwart the multitudinous sound. Stunned at length by all this, Antonio fell asleep, leaning on his sword as he sat before the crucifix; and when the cold morning breeze awakened him, he found himself on the highest peak of a narrow ridge in the midst of a thick forest, and thought he heard bursts of scornful laughter behind him.
It was at the peril of his life that he climbed down the steep precipice, tearing his clothes, and wounding his face and hands and feet. He had then to wander wearisomely through the forest: there was not a soul to call to, not a hut to be discovered far around, often as he mounted the hights to explore. When it was almost night, faint with fatigue, hunger, and exhaustion, he fell in with an old collier who refresht him in his little hut. He learnt that he must be some twelve miles and upward from the hermitage he had met with the evening before. It was only late on the following day that, somewhat strengthened and cheered, he could pursue his journey toward Florence.
Antonio had returned to Florence for the sake of visiting his kindred and his paternal house again. He could not make up his mind on what course of life to enter, since all the happiness of existence had proved so treacherous, and even realities had shewn themselves to him under the aspect of a mad dream.
He settled his affairs, and gave himself up to his sorrow in the great palace of his fathers; where that fatal grotto and every well-known room only harast his mind with the liveliest images of his own and his parents misfortunes. He thought too of that hateful witch who was so entangled in his fate, and of that Crescentia who had appeared to him and then vanisht again in a way scarcely less marvellous than his bride. If he could have caught the slightest glimmering of hope, he might in time have grown reconciled to life again.
At last there rose up within his soul, like a pale star, the wish of making a pilgrimage to Rome, which he had never yet seen, there to partake in the graces bestowed upon the faithful, to visit the famous churches and holy relics, to divert his thoughts from himself in the midst of the streaming multitude, the throng of numberless strangers who had journied thither from all quarters of the earth, and to seek out his friend Alfonso. He also expected that he should find old Ambrosio in the great city, should receive comfort from this mourner who had meant to become his father, and might perhaps afford him too some comfort in his affliction. With these feelings and views he set out on his way, and after some time arrived at Rome.
He was astonisht when he entered the great city. He had framed no conception of her grandeur, her ancient monuments, or of such a concourse of innumerable strangers. It might well be deemed matter of wonder if one found out any friend or acquaintance, without being able beforehand to give an accurate account of where he lived. And yet this wonderful chance befell him in his suddenly meeting Ambrosio, as he was going up to the Capitol from which the old man was coming down. The Podesta carried him to his house, where Antonio greeted the sorrowing mother. The rumour of Pietro's strange end, of Crescentia's return to life and second departure from it, had already been bruited as far as Rome: this marvellous story was in the mouth of every pilgrim, disfigured with confused additions and contradictions, and drest out by frequent repeating into the very reverse of the truth. The parents listened with alternations of joy and woe to the story as Antonio told it, awestruck as they both were, especially the mother, who gave vent to her loathing in execrations against the old hypocritical magician, and in her rage more than half believed that he had himself been the cause of her daughter's death, having perhaps taken a bribe for that purpose from the family of Marconi, that he had poisoned her for the sake of awakening her corpse again to gratify his frantic abominations.